Hidden Dynasty

Outdated, Out of Touch, Out of Luck

Elina proposes that the Dynasty picks up a couple Astropaths before leaving for the pickup and Torian and Elina head to the Pit of Voices to lookup any astropaths. The place is creepy and Torian is NOT happy to be there. They spend the next couple hours searching for psykers and investigating the Pit of Voices. Torian has a low grade headache the entire time. They are warned of one of the inhabitants of The Pit being an amazingly powerful seer and warned to try to avoid him. But while searching for astropaths they come across him and Torian and Elina have a vision and Torian is shaken by the images.

Eventually, they settle on three astropaths and have them return to the ship at a later time while Torian arranges for their pay and benefits. The first AStropath continually mutters single words and demanded Grapes as being amongst his fee… “Space space space space space YES! yes space…”
The second wanders through the walkways tappign himself on his forehead constantly and when in reach of something else… alternating the tapping. Tap the wall tap my head tap the wall tap my head… etc.
The third came in with voluminous robes and acting as if she was stroking something in her huge sleeves… and amongst her fee was a supply of kitties.

Thale, last minute, rushes out and hires the Spiced Rat vendor and his immediate employees to come on board and make Spiced Rat for the crew. (And Thale)

The ship takes off from Footfall and heads out to the transit point out of system… The Luck blazes forward and then her engines stop dead and she continues to coast along towards the edge of the Shield Shrines effect. Lucian races to get the engines back online and tries to convince the Machine Spirit to admit that the ship has engines. However, the ship doesn’t remember ever having engines and isn’t willing to admit that it might have engines now. Eventually, Lucian is able to get the Machine Spirit to accept that it has engines and always had engines and it doesn’t know why Lucian is complaining about them not working since obviously they are working now aren’t they.

Areidna notices, however, that the ship tends to pull towards planetary bodies but when Lucian goes to try to find a way to fix it… The problems stop.

Once the ship gets out to the transit points, the ship translates into warp and heads along towards it’s destination. Along the trip however, the geller field starts to fluctuate and ribbons of the warp starts to intrude upon the ship. Kalmen and Areadna vox to complain to Lucian about it and Lucian is unable to stop the field from failing. Claxons are ringing across the ship and Torian is hiding in his bed room and fails his fear test. The crew is also not doing well since this is amongst their first few transits and things are falling to shit.

Kalmen is able to wrest the ship into realspace at around the time that the geller field fails completely. As the auspex units go into action to try to piece together the location and setting of the unexpected warp exit, Lucian tries to figure out what is wrong and totally fucks up the roll(00) and has no fate points left. :) However, Lucian is willing to burn his “good luck” and so a junior tech priest points out that Lucian tripped over a cable and once plugged back in… the diagnostics report what needs to be fixed. A two day job to get the Geller field online.

The astropaths in the choir are looked in on after the warp horrors and the “space space space” guy is standing in the middle of the primary choir chamber shouting “WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” at the top of his lungs.

Hours or so later, the auspex units have started to return information that can be regarded as possibly truthworth and the void outside can be pieced together.

They find a single rogue planet far outside the blessed warmth of a primary star it’s atmosphere frozen into solid by the cold void around it. The ship continues it’s scans and a couple hours later, a brilliant flash of burning psychic power floods the ship and lights up the auspex array like an Emperor’s Visit tree. The planet is every six hours giving off a huge blast of power and energy as it rotates around it’s axis. Under the ice of the atmosphere there is a power source that is very similar to the output of the astropathic choir.

After spending 1.5 days getting close to the planet and getting more information, Kalmen is pretty certain he can find his way back here again and they don’t haev time to investigate the planetoid further. (M Class world about the size and shape of earth.) They head on to the pickup.

The warp trip to the pickup coordinates is simple and goes off without a hitch. We ended there to pickup next week.

The liege escorts Kalmen and Torian around to the interesting people of the meeting. Introduces them to The Provisor, Hadarak Fel, The Obsidian Emporium and others.

Meeting with the Kasballica Mission at “The Dive”. Arranges to do a pickup for the Mission within 30 days. (since each day in warp transit is 12 days real time) Then to deliver it through the Maw to coordinates provided by the pickup.

The initial research into the Liege and what is traditional.
Clothing changes of the cast for formal situations.
Intro to the liege’s court.
Kalmen going all third eye on everyone.
Everyone reacting to a rogue trader who is also a Navigator.
Meeting with the liege
Finding of the three(known) psychers.
Meeting with “The Provisor” of the tutors. That went wonderfully. Now, I just need to remember the accent for next time.
Meeting with Vladaym Tocara of the Kasballica Mission.
Saw the old guy… Gonna have to go look at my notes again.

And then 500xp at the end for the last two sessions. I’m going to raise that to 750 since it really should be for 3 sessions. So 11000 xp total. Spend away.

At the beginning of the session, Torian is able to convince the people that no insult was intended and the group is escorted off the station and from the system. From there, a quick trip to Footfall is accomplished in roughly a day and a half in the warp.

However, the warp exit goes rather badly and the Luck transits out of warp in the middle of the station itself and on a collision course with the Macrostatue of the God-Emperor himself. The statue is a battleship sized structure tethered to the stone of footfall by voidsteel chains. The statue looks out over the unconquered stars of the Koronos Expanse.

Klaxons go off, the ship screams at the tortured reentry near a gravity well and Areidne tries to pull the ship from a collision course with the statue. I should have run this differently from how I did. I should have made Areidne succeed at three piloting checks in order to not hit the statue and each check gets you closer and closer to the statue. Each check would give you a +10 or a -10 to the next check based on numbers of successes. A good roll would have made the next roll easier and a bad roll… well… is bad. Anyway… Areidne is able to force the ship to come about before slamming into the God-Emperor and brings the ship to a stop. Targeting systems are aimed at the ship from many of the sides and a cacophony of voices blare out at you from the vox. Eventually, order descends and the Luck is told where to berth and Areidne starts the perilous journey to the Footfall Longshore. The trip there is touch and go with trying to avoid the anchored and tethered asteroids that make up Footfall but eventually she is able to bring the ship into berth.

From there, communication with the Vryce’s Watch is established and initial conversation doesn’t go well. Jeffers answers the vox and is initially very unbelieving of the that Kalmen is the holder of the Vryce Warrant of Trade. Once Torian assures Jeffers that everything is on the up and up, Jeffers is excited by the idea and welcomes Kalmen home. Kalmen arranges to go visit the manse by Guncutter.

Kalmen and military escort land in the Hangar bay of the Vryce’s Watch and Thale and Kalmen secure the cargo bay. Thale takes up positions around the airlock door and ready to head further into the manse.

The door begins to open and Jeffers starts to say “Welcome to your ancestral…” and then Thale and the security team are sweeping into the open airlock and securing the personnel.

Jeffers is an 85 year old man with a cybernetic arm and a cybernetic eye that takes up half his face. He is well presented in the Gold and Black of the original Vryce colors and looks quite startled at all the guns pointed at him and the three servants with him. He somewhat quickly regains his composure once the frisking is over with and the security detail continues it’s sweep of the area of the manse that are habitable. Once Thale mentions it, Jeffers pipes up and mentions that they shouldn’t go into any areas that are locked first without checking to see if the areas beyond are open to vacuum since there are areas of the manse that are in very poor shape and not safe to visit.

Jeffers offers to take Kalmen to dinner and is escorted to a presented meal.

Katie is given a name. Katie is the released slave that Kalmen acquired. She has three cybernetic implants that are found to be an increase in stamina, and reproductive prevention implants. The third is associated with her brain chemistry.

The ship is unable to be repaired since funds are unavailable, however, repairs using the in-house parts are able to proceed. Katie and three of the manse personnel are sent to train the families and personnel of the Luck on how Footfall works. Torian is looking for jobs and new workers for the manse.

Thale continues his search of the manse but eventually starts just securing the areas current under power and gravity. The rest of the manse is falling apart and not safe until repaired or at least shored up. Repair crews will have to be allocated for that to continue. I think I’ll turn this into a game. Create a layout of the manse and allocate a certain number of hull points per section and have them having to be repaired in order to bring that section back online and useful. Each section could have bonuses or just allow more personnel to live in the manse.

Another separate armsman squad takes up living at the manse and makes things a bit tight in the limited quarters that currently exist.

After the two weeks of repairs to the ship, a servoskull comes by with a message from Liege Tanthus Moross. The message is an invite to Court being held tonight at the palace of the Liege of Footfall.

The first portion of the night was finalizing characters and figuring out everyone wanted to do during the two months downtime of the warp storms fading

Kalmen looking over the information from Torian decides to head to Caliphas III-2 an old holding of the Dynasty that happens to be nearby.

The warp trip is surprisingly calm and quick. The baleful xenos machine of the Runecaster does it’s arcane magics and speeds Vryce’s Luck on it’s path.

Upon arrival… the group finds that Caliphas is no longer the system reported in the family records. The system itself matches the records, but the planet itself does not.

Initial contact with the current “owners” of Caliphas is by astropathic communication at the edges of the system. The initial communication is that the Vryce’s Luck is a ship in need of resupply and trade. The ship is met in system by smaller system ships and escorted to the Caliphas space station. The station itself is a trade port and Torian is able to trade your raw materials for food and medical supplies. Torian is able to get the Scourge dynasty agents to throw in an educated female slave as a taste of what they also supply. However, Torian also manages to royally piss off the staff and suddenly combat personnel show up around them and get ready to kill some rogue traders.

This post is for two weeks of sessions and will have an XP reward at the end…

Vryce’s Luck arrives at the ruin of Sanctuary to discover that the Vryce’s Gambit has become The Emperor’s Bane and is waiting for them in the debris field. A verbal sparing match goes on between Halia and Kalmen and then the fight begins… The Vryce’s Luck finds itself out maneuvered and after a bad thruster hit storms out past the ruins of the station to the lifters that are broadcasting SOS calls.

The Luck is able to find it’s way to the closest one and finds the lifter pilot a able pilot and addition to the crew. Other than the fact that she’s Zaminski’s sister and also possibly crazy. But a different crazy.

After that, next session the Luck returns to the fight and manages to give the Emperor’s Bane a sound thrashing. Much more so than intended. Grrrr The final volley from Thale sends the ship to it’s doom and breaches the warp core on the ship. Through able piloting, Vryce’s Luck is able to weather the tear in the materium that threatens to pull the ship to it’s doom. Emperor’s Bane is not so lucky and is utterly swallowed by the malevolent hell of the warp.

A salvage operation of Sanctuary continues but finds little to be happy with. The destruction of the station is near absolute. Pieces of the station and void frozen bodies rain against the hull of the Luck while the search continues.

Families on board the ship, when duties permit, search the expanding field for loved ones or even those known to them. They find little but further cause to weep.

A beacon from an outer moon calls the Luck to the surface where a unassuming hiding spot produces the Vryce Warrant of Trade as well as a holo recording of Kalmen’s father wishing him luck.

Over the course of the next two months… the warp storm recedes into memory and a strange shimmering and blinking starfield replaces it’s horror filled space. Bouts of agoraphobia run rampant in those born in the peculiar void that is Helios. Suddenly, the people of the world look up to no longer see the warp ceiling they are used to. The night sky is no longer purple and odd shades of colors that burn the eye to look at them.

Helios is irrevocably changed… but the dynasty is free again to ply it’s trade amongst the systems of the Koronus Expanse.

So, the formative portion of the game is over. This next game makes all large scale changes to the characters permanent. So think about what you want to do with the character and it is settled tonight. As a reward for surviving and finishing the first portion of the game… one Fate Point is awarded to all. Please record this on the character sheets. Also, a full 1000xp is awarded to all. Total XP is now 10250. Once it’s spent to 10k, this will put everyone at Rank 3 Rogue Traders. :)

Due to two gamers being absent, both Torian and Kalmen were in spock mode during the game. Not my favorite way of doing things and with the revelations from tonight I really didn’t want to skip it… but I kinda wanted Kalmen around for reasons to be seen later.
After the defeat of the slime worms (Of Ragnar Seven!), the group tracks back to the original Y intersection and heads north to the four way intersection. At the intersection, Lucian has Yorick scout out all three passages and finds that the westerly passage slopes down and curves north. The northern passage slopes down and the eastern passage slopes up and curves north.

After much discussion, Elina eventually snaps and says “The demon is that way just go to the demon!” The rest of the group agrees and the group heads down the northern passage.

The passage keeps heading down for at least a hundred meters and gets slippery the further down you go. Elina notices tracks in the sludge and several drag spots as well and hurries the group along. The group, however, can not go too fast without slipping and risking injury.

Eventually, the passage widens out into a large cavern maybe 3 meters in radius. Inside the cavern, closer to the far wall, are 3-4 glowing green patches of luminescence. Yorick, scouts out the cavern and comes across an image that strikes Lucian to the core and he calls the group forward but warns that they will not like what they see and to be ready against it.

Stepping forward, the group finds a irregular pit in the cavern floor with stalactites and stalagmites in it. The pool itself is full of the slight glowing slime and helps to support the grotesque bulks that resides in it. The six meter long body of a worm coils amongst the slime. The worm is of the same basic structure as the smaller ones that the group fought earlier but for two facets that bring fear to the heart. An arm and a leg protrude from the swollen body and lie back against the slime slicked body of the beast. They are vestigial and shrunken from the human limbs they used to be. Hidden against the body are the other arm and leg, but seen only as outlines in the bulk from where they have fuzed with the body. But worst of all is the mishapen face of a woman that stares out at you from the face of the beast. Marcella, sister to Kalmen and daughter to Geoff, lies in a slime pit from which her body can not escape.

“By the God Emperor”, Lucian intones and the warped mouth opens to speak. “The God Emperor had nothing to do with this Lucian. Where was the God Emperor when I called on his love and mercy?”

“What happened my sister?” asks Kalmen. She explains that she will tell all she knows if he will promise to give her the mercy of the god emperor. Kalmen agrees. Marcella tells the group about how it was Halia who had captured her and tried to twist her to the Dark Gods purpose but she resisted. Halia had been the one at the moon that Kalmen had investigated. Halia had been the one who corrupted her Bishop and used him to enact several of the rites for her Dark God. Halia had been the one to warp Jace to terror. After the game a discussion occurred about the hints that I’d placed. The group almost guessed it was Halia after Jace’s diary said “his sister” had done it but the group moved on from that subject and figured he must have meant Marcella.

Marcella asked that Kalmen stop Halia and keep his side of the bargain. Kalmen does so and kills Marcella with a long burst from his heavy bolter. Her body slumps back into the pool that had changed her. Discovered in the pool are four of the cultists bodies two of them with sacks. Kalmen pulls the sacks out of the goo telekinetically and opens them. Inside are organs and entrails.

Zaminski attempts to call The Luck but can’t reach the ancient ship above them. The group quickly heads back up to the entrance to the caverns and argues about how to best leave the planet. Zaminski takes charge and suggests a teleport and damn the guncutter. Kalmen eventually, voxes the guncutter and tells them to return to the ship and has the teleportarium transport them back to the ship.

Zaminski sends a message to Holyoak to be alert and to not allow Halia in the cathedral. Kalmen sends a message to his father about what they have found and turns the ship towards Sanctuary for the return trip and the handling of a sibling.

30 minutes into the trip back a little before the earliest communication back from the station would be expected, the auspex officer illustrates something on the viewscreen. A bright white light has flared into life in the outer solar syster. It flares, burns for several seconds and then dies. With a voice full of shock, the auspex crew says… “That was Sanctuary… The station… It’s gone!”

And we ended the game there… After game discussion spoke about the millions of inhabitants that lived on the station and how they are all dead. Holyoak, Fulsom and maybe Bishop Tarsus are all dead as well. The largest population of the solar system all dead. Luke had the horrified thought of “Maybe she’s using their souls as a summoning.” But that will get handled next week.

I’m not sure exactly the order for this next stuff. But I’ll get it down

Bishop Fisher stays onboard the Luck since the Gambit is off to gather Bishop Tarsus from Eos.

Kalmen talks to the Enginseer Prime on Sanctuary and arranges to have him remove the last copy of the video from cogitor array.

Torian gets the dirt on Holyoak and speaks with Fulsom in the market. He speaks with fulsom about what is going on with his flock and warns him about what’s been happening.

Kalmen decides that it’s better to be safe than sorry and has Elina mindsquidge Fisher. But Elina gets more than she bargained for and finds a hidden personality that wakes up at her probing. She starts to probe the second mind and finds it probing her back. She cuts the link and attacks Fisher. Fisher changes his hand into what looks like bone and attacks Kalmen. Kalmen and Elina together kill him and the body is disposed of quite quickly.

Kalmen alerts his father and halia to the issue. Geoff says that to get to the bottom of this “We’ll purge the whole damn church if we have to.” Halia regrets that her bishop was bad but is willing to put as many people to the flame as needed to protect Father.

At the end… Everyone goes to sleep and we wake to a new day. We’ve got a couple days left before Halia gets back with Bishop Tarsus.